There is a Thing in a Man
by Lunatic with a Hero Complex
Summary: Men, like ships, are of a type of wood, and wood only bends so far. SPOILERS for AWE.


He hadn't been mad before. He'd been erratic, and dramatic, and distracting. Between this and mad, there was a vast wasteland of difference. But when he sailed away from Davey Jones Locker, he was mad. Not in the angry way, though he was angry, quite upset. He'd been certifiable… He was talking to himself, fourteen of himself to be exact.

And he was okay with that.

What he didn't like, or rather what bothered him, was that no one else seemed to notice. They all took it as a matter of course. As though he was naturally unaffected by months in his own personal hell with the love of his life and unable to escape with her, unable to get to the sea, without company. It darkened something in him, something already darkened by his commune with his narcissistic phantom crew.

So now, he walked along the railing of his lady, gazing at his home, and contemplating the pros and cons of actually putting effort into rigging this whole experience. The ocean's unexplored areas were shrinking. There was hardly any adventure left for him to have. The Brethren would meet, and he was sure, if he worked at it, the Brethren, and their ships could be victorious. But to what purpose? So that they could die slowly as the British Navy took over every area of the sea all on their own?

Jack Sparrow was no fool. He was often a bastard, sometimes a coward, and many times a lover, but he was most definitely no fool. And he wanted to go out of this world in his own way. He would not be dragged to the depths by Davey Jones, he would not swing from a weak British noose.

He would shuffle his way off this mortal coil right along side of The Black Pearl. He could not control everything, despite the thoughts of some, but he would be in control of that. He would go down with his only true love, his Pearl.

He could go now.

He could go down to the cellars of his ship, bust a hole in her bottoms, calmly walk back to the deck, take his place at the helm, watch the rest of them leave, and gaze on as his world sank back to the ocean, with him in it.

But he wouldn't.

There was a thing in him that loved the fight.

A beast of great primitive nature that would refuse to end as long as it could, until there was no other course of action, and even then it would force a new one. The fire that made him Jack Sparrow, and not Jack Teague, that was what kept him from his suicidal impulses. So he hopped from his railing, and watched numbly as they sailed for the distant island, where supposedly they could refuel. Though how Turner, whose only seaward adventures had been with him, or with pirates that didn't need refueling, had known where to find freshwater and supplies was beyond him.

* * *

He was ready to give up, however, he was going to take William Bloody Turner down with him, the fire demanded that at least. He was going to kill that whelp, slowly, painfully, happily. Of all the people he feared would take his lady, he did not think that he would, he figured he would be far too busy with his own lady. But no…he had to double cross them.

And after he had killed Will Turner, he would leave…the Jacks around him suggested that it would be nice, that it would be a relief…well one of them just wanted him to have rum….but besides that, they seemed to be singing a good tune. He could just cause a riot, scream, fight, do everything very un-Sparrow like and in good order they would shoot him, here, on the deck of the Pearl. And he would die. And go elsewhere, not to a locker, or to a ship's crew, but elsewhere.

He could.

But there was a thing in Jack that loved to win.

And if he could work this so that Will was the one in his trap, then his soul would be marvelous much satisfied. To get Barbossa off of his ship, to get Beckett eating out of his hand, to put Will in too tight restraints, these concepts pleased the darkness, and the pirate in him.

So, when the time came, and he was placed into the situated offices of Cutler Beckett, he negotiated.

* * *

And now, here, in the dark of the night on Shipwreck Island, there was no thing that he could feel holding him. He had gone this far… he'd worked it so that Elizabeth was Pirate King. The wisdom of that move was still questionable for him, but he'd done it there was no turning back now. The Pirate Brethren would fight.

And yet, he felt still, the cold isolation in his heart that had been bred in his stay in the locker. He'd proven he was still an able Sparrow, and yet, he felt…no grasp of the future.

He could forestall his long saga of insane loneliness.

He was alone on the beach, he could step into the ocean, and step, and step, and step, and then, when he was unable to step, he would swim, and swim, and swim, and swim, and when he was unable to swim, he would float, and sink and again, the ocean would take him back.

And there was a thing in Jack that loved the ocean.

So he took a step towards the waves, and another, and was lifting the foot for another when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned and looked, blindly.

Elizabeth stared back at him. She'd shed her Captain's gear for the evening, and her hair was down. And she was staring at Captain Jack Sparrow as if she'd never seen him before.

He was back in an instant, "Elizabeth, luv, whatever are you here for, there's no boats to handcuff me to, I think you've hit wrong port." He smiled caustically and bowed.

She did not respond appropriately, he expected a moment of shame, or at least a little anger. But she just continued staring at him, it made him nervous, so, as usual, he kept talking.

"Of course, you could always just try and hold me under, sure that would meet with _fantastic_ success, now scamper off luv, you've courts to be a'rulin."

He turned back to the sea, waiting for her to leave, but she didn't. He could still feel her presence on his back, "What were you going to do Jack?" She sounded very curious. He really didn't like it. "Just going to take a dive." He turned to give her a very dirty leer, "Let myself feel the breeze and the ocean, savvy?"

She seemed thoroughly unhooked. "Jack, you're different. You're darker. I don't think I like it."

"Well, Captain Swann, I'm afraid this is the way I am, love me, or adore me."

He did not like this conversation. Not at bloody all. And worse yet, he did not foresee her giving up in the near future. So he began to walk past her towards the fortress. He was 10 feet up the beach before she called out, "What broke you, Jack?"

He stopped. And breathed, he seemed to be short on breath.

She came up behind him, she didn't touch him again though. "Jack, you're fractured, you're sadder, I hate that I did this. How did you break Captain Jack Sparrow? You aren't supposed to be susceptible to these things."

He was mad. Bloody Fucking Mad.

He spun on her, she jumped back in fright, "Well I am terribly sorry to disappoint you _Captain Swann_, but I am "susceptible to these things. I have but one love in my life, and that is roaming this wide world on the deck of my ship. It is a rare thing in a decade that I both have my ship and am on the sea. I got it back. I was sailing her wherever I chose. I was pleased until Davey Jones reared his rather tentically head over the port bow. And then…you chained me to The Pearl and sent me to a place where I had my lady, but could no longer take her anywhere."

He'd been shouting in her face, all traces of humor gone, and now his voice began to crack, he was gripping her arms, "All I could do was watch her rot away in the desert sand, and rot away myself. There are things, Miss Swann, that a man should not have to see. I would not ask you to feast your feminine eyes upon the sight of Mr. Turner wasting away slowly. Such as he is to you, so is my Pearl. I am not a man of steel. I am a man of yew, and I bend, and bend, and bend until I am broken. The part of me that loves to live, it has snapped, but not yet broken."

There was horror in her face. The horror of the very young and the very sheltered. And he almost felt bad for putting it there, but he could not stop. It would be said, and perhaps he would be better after it, perhaps he would be simply worse.

There was a thing in him that loved to shock.

So he moved through the paces, letting everything he'd felt on that desert, that desert full of its Barbossa rocks and glaring sun, run out of his mouth and fall upon her, the cause of his misery, like dirt on a coffin. "So you want to know what exactly I was going to do, Eh? I was going to walk out into the ocean and stay there, as I have stopped myself from doing so often on this long voyage to failure. So turn your terribly interested Captain self back around and get you into the fortress."

She stared at him solidly for a full minute, shocked, dismayed, and he was distressed to note, crying.

He walked back past her and went towards the ocean. He would wait until she was gone, but he could still look at it.

But it was not to be so, he saw. She marched right up behind him and…hugged him. He again found himself unable to breath. She just hugged him for the longest minute, "Jack Sparrow, I've done a terrible thing to you. But you can't just decide to end it. There is a thing in you that loves life, Jack, and you might be able to quash it down, but you shouldn't. What makes you Captain Jack Sparrow instead of Jack is just the fact that you have such a talent for living. We may disdain you, but you are what we want to be. You have to do it right. You can't let your story end here, like this." She was quiet for a moment, and then she moved around to his front, "You're still my hero Jack. I know that I've experienced the reality of piracy now, but a part of me will always feel a childlike fascination with you, you are what I want to grow up to be. Don't throw that into the sea."

He was frozen, here on the edge of legend in between oblivion and the proper end to his story. He would choose, if there was one thing that was certain with Jack Sparrow, it was that he chose things. The moment stretched into eternity, into eons, into space, and Elizabeth just waited, understanding something for the first time in her life, without having to be told.

He smiled at her, leered more like it, "You know, I've always wondered what it might be like to sleep with royalty."


End file.
